Tag: Giggleapps »

Your Trusted Source for App Reviews

Having trouble making sense out of the overwhelming number of apps released each week? Have no fear! Just look to 148Apps for the best app reviews on the web. Our reviewers sift through the vast numbers of new apps out there, find the good ones, and write about them in depth. The ones we love become Editor’s Choice, standing out above the many good apps and games with something just a little bit more to offer. Want to see what we've been up to this week? Take a look below for a sampling of our latest reviews. And if you want more, be sure to hit our Reviews Archive.

The Caped Crusader is back in brick form for a new adventure, this time on iOS. As someone who’s had an on-again off-again relationship with LEGO games in the past I was curious to see how a mobile release might hold up. Turns out it holds up very well. Like, ridiculously well. In fact, LEGO Batman: DC Super Heroes is hands-down the best LEGO game I’ve ever played. Yes, including ones on consoles. All the wacky villains that should be stuck in Arkham have gotten loose. Again. Now they’re terrorizing Gotham. Again. And this time Joker has managed to team up with Lex Luthor. The two are such a handful that Batman has to enlist the help of other heroes, including Wonder Woman, Cyborg, and a whole lot more. There’s a conventional virtual stick and buttons setup and a surprisingly intuitive touch interface to pick from. No matter their preference, players will be bashing everything in sight to collect studs (the world’s currency), reconfiguring piles of bricks into new contraptions, finding tons of secrets, and doing just about everything else they could expect to find in a big screen LEGO game. --Rob Rich

Is it possible to make something great even better? When it comes to Robot Unicorn Attack 2, the sequel to the popular endless runner where a unicorn jumps and dashes through multi-tiered levels, collecting fairies and smashing stars, the answer is a resounding “Yes!” First off, Adult Swim Games enlisted PikPok on the title, and as a studio well-known for their fun games and high production values, it was a perfect choice. It’s immediately apparent that this game is absolutely gorgeous. The level of detail in the animated backgrounds, the galloping unicorns, and just everything is absolutely astounding. New elements like Giants that can kill the player if their solar beam attacks aren’t avoided add a splash to the familiar experience. --Carter Dotson

Impressively nearing its 100th anniversary, The Thirty-Nine Steps is still a tremendously gripping thriller courtesy of John Buchan. With various cinematic adaptations, it’s easily accessible, too. Now, we have this iPad adaptation, part interactive story, part simple game, to enjoy. It’s quite good too, although slow-paced and not without its problems. Following the story of Richard Hannay, a man framed for murder in 1914, it’s a great mystery full of intrigue and riddles. Readers don’t get to change the outcome or events within the book but they do get to interact with objects, start up conversations and open doors. The latter is a little gimmicky, invoking gestures to perform the required action, but the rest feels like an enhancement to getting into the story. --Jennifer Allen

It’s almost wrong to fault GoComics. As a free app, it does mostly anything could want from it, in terms of content. As a paid app (via an in-app purchase subscription), it eliminates one of its main irritants: the adverts. For a comic fan, it’s an ideal addition to their collection, even despite its issues. GoComics is, essentially, a portal of many of the most popular comic strips out there, as well some great up-and-coming artists. There’s plenty of space for political cartoons, too, sensibly categorized according to their political leanings. It’s immediately easy to dive straight in and find one’s favorites, with the likes of Calvin and Hobbes, Peanuts and Garfield playing a prominent part in the appeal. Just tap on their name and the latest strip comes up, along with a calendar that enables users to go back to any date they so choose. It’s fast to browse and easy to lose plenty of time to. --Jennifer Allen

Other 148Apps Network Sites

If you are looking for the best reviews of kids' apps and/or Android apps, just head right over to GiggleApps and AndroidRundown. Here are just some of the reviews these sites served up this week:

GiggleApps

It will come as no surprise to readers that I am often asked to recommend apps to family and friends, especially for those in grade school, as iTunes seems filled with apps for toddlers and those in preschool, but it can be harder to find apps for older children. Parents looking for an interesting, thought-provoking app for this age set should take note of Escape From Tokeru, a puzzle game that includes an interesting back story, beautiful illustrations and moody, ambient background music. --Amy Solomon

Gappy’s First Words is a new interactive universal app that re-enforces early spelling and reading comprehension from the developers at Spinlight Studio, a favorite developer of mine these apps are consistently rich with details and nuances at a level of quality making these application stands out from others. Meet Gappy, an interesting bunny-like character with large ears and big teeth, and help Gappy hop her way home, filling in the gaps of word puzzles along the way – stylized as a bridge of sorts where pieces of this crossing are missing and need to be completed with correct letter tiles. Success will earn users new details that can be added to Gappy’s house such as new windows, fence or chimney. --Amy Solomon

Cheesy Chess is a creative and fun mouse-themed logic game with heavy chess elements. This app reminds me a lot of the slider puzzles I had as a kid where plastic tiles will ultimately make up an image but needed to be slid within this puzzle, keeping in mind that only one piece can be moved at once. Here, imagine a mouse king who needs to progress through this slider puzzle at the top center to leave this board, but the other puzzle pieces need to be moved out of his way to do so. --Amy Solomon

AndroidRundown

Mountain Sheep’s arcade hockey game Ice Rage has finally made its way to Android thanks to Herocraft – is this game a slap shot goal or power play where the team with the advantage does not score? I’m not too well-versed in hockey. There are no power plays or penalties or icing here, as it’s all about one-on-one hockey action. It’s really more akin to air hockey instead of ‘actual’ hockey in any way. Players can check the opponent to get the puck, and when they have it, it’s possible to hold down on the one virtual button on screen to charge up and aim a shot. Matches last one just minute in most modes, so it’s perfect for fast sessions. There’s plenty of crazy action that goes on here, with arrow angles and tough shots to make. Just because it’s arcade hockey doesn’t mean that some degree of precision is unnecessary! The arcade ladder made with temporary character upgrades is a fun diversion, and the later difficulties with things like manual goalie control help out as well. There’s a crazy set of characters to play as, including Enviro-Bear. Bear is playing hockey, how can this be? --Carter Dotson

For the over-21 crowd there are not many things that spice up a good night with friends than sitting back and mixing up a few bar favorites. The obvious caveat is that not everyone is a trained bar tender and a poorly mixed drink can put a damper on a good night. Amazingly there are machines that will mix drinks automatically, but those have a large footprint and, besides being expensive, are cumbersome and hard to clean. Besides, what is the fun of making a good lemon drop if some machine pumps one out automatically. So, get a glass that has all those recipes on the side measured out by volume. Well, the problem here is that there can only be 6-7 mixtures tops, and there are hundreds of drink recipes in the world. Also, those do a poor job at measuring solids like sugar or salt. The answer is The Barman, an ingenious KickStarter project by John Gallagher of Sewell, New Jersey. --Joseph Bertolini

Jones on Fire is a fun little runner that will probably have folks doing a double take due to the unique look of the playing characters. It looked very, uh, Lego-ey. And somehow, that wasn’t even the best part. Folks like me who grew up as fans of the iconic chiidren’s building blocks, or have played console games based on their form (like Stars Wars or Batman) will understand. The simplistic block figures were endearing, and I thought they blended well with the unique background. The sharp colors added to the overall experience, with walls of fire retaining a menacing look even while contrasting with localized burns on the ground. I liked the little graphical things, like the look of the game store, decked out with green text and fireman’s pole. The entire atmosphere was almost as enjoyable as the game action itself. --Tre Lawrence

Your Trusted Source for App Reviews

Having trouble making sense out of the overwhelming number of apps released each week? Have no fear! Just look to 148Apps for the best app reviews on the web. Our reviewers sift through the vast numbers of new apps out there, find the good ones, and write about them in depth. The ones we love become Editor’s Choice, standing out above the many good apps and games with something just a little bit more to offer. Want to see what we've been up to this week? Take a look below for a sampling of our latest reviews. And if you want more, be sure to hit our Reviews Archive.

I won’t dawdle with getting this out there: I love Trial of the Clone. It made me laugh numerous times and it made me want to replay it many, many times just so I could see how things could work out differently. Like all of Tin Man Games’s other releases, it won’t be for those who want fast paced gaming, but for those who want to read an entertaining story while interacting with certain elements, it’s fantastic. The story, based upon the book of the same name by Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal’s Zach Weinersmith, follows the tale of a clone in a distant future, as they find themselves having to undertake a special destiny. It all sounds incredibly pious and worthy but it’s merely the backdrop to some great self-referential humor and some playful digs at popular Science Fiction. Consistently tongue in cheek, not only will players find themselves having to decide what to do about the galaxy’s fate, but they’ll also find themselves having to fight angry mothers, outwitting little old ladies and getting drunk with fellow soldiers. --Jennifer Allen

Online games are lucky to maintain a fan base for weeks, let alone for months, or even years. In the case of the interstellar MMO Vendetta Online, the game has managed to feed a thriving fan base since 1998. For those of you keeping track at home, that is a whopping fifteen years! Now that the game has managed to conquer most major platforms including the likes of PC, Mac and Android, the company has now set its sights on iPad. Can this massive experience make the jump to iOS, or will the gigantic scope overwhelm the more mobile-minded gamer? Everyone who has ever complained about the lack of a significant PC-centric MMO experience on iOS now has permission to sit down. Vendetta Online has somehow managed to port its entire online platform to iPad in a way that would seem impossibly succinct given the depth of the experience, yet just as fully featured as its big brother counterparts on Mac and PC. If it sounds too good to be true, rest assured, it isn’t. Just know that depth comes at the cost of a steep learning curve. --Blake Grundman

Fish Out of Water is Halfbrick’s long-awaited next game; it’s hard to believe that their last mega-release, Jetpack Joyride is over a year and a half old at this point. It’s very playable, but may not be something with a lot of longevity. The goal is to launch three different fish across water, trying to maximize the distance they go along with the number of times they skip across the water, to try and impress the five different crab judges who score on various criteria. Most fish should be launched at a low enough angle that they go far, but won’t just fall in to the water. Some fish are wildly different – for example, Finlay the dolphin (yes, the game knows dolphins aren’t actually fish) can jump and dive out of the water, with each dive counting as a skip. However, he shouldn’t touch the bottom of the water, because that will slow him down immensely. The brothers split into multiple fish, so if used properly, they can rack up massive numbers of skips. --Carter Dotson

Might & Magic: Duel Of Champions is a digital card battler, much like Wizards of the Coast’s Magic 2013 or Gameloft’s own Order and Chaos: Duels. There are some subtle differences in the mechanics of the basic ruleset, but the idea is the same: lay out artistically rendered cards on a grid, using warriors, spells, and events to outscore an opponent, dropping hit points of the enemy Hero card to zero. Duel of Champions works similarly. Players get a deck of cards and an initial hand of randomly dealt creatures, events, spells, and fortunes to lay out on the grid. The virtual game space is laid out left vs right, with the player taking the spot on the left. Turns proceed in phases that are less linear than, say, Magic 2013, in that players can increase resources, play cards from their hand, or utilize special cards in any order. Instead of resource cards, here, players increase either Might or Magic via the Hero card, which is chosen for them initially by the specific deck they pick during setup. --Rob LeFebvre

Other 148Apps Network Sites

If you are looking for the best reviews of kids' apps and/or Android apps, just head right over to GiggleApps and AndroidRundown. Here are just some of the reviews these sites served up this week:

GiggleApps

Mystery Math Town is a wonderful new math app that will engage both children and adults. I am really impressed with this app, as players here guide a friendly ghost who has agreed to help release fireflies that have been caught in jars hidden among rooms and outdoor spaces of wonderfully stylized houses – per the plead of their firefly mom as seen in an introduction to this creative math application. To do so, one will need to gather numbers that are to be used in math problems that one will come across in order to enter or leave any of the rooms of outside spaces connected to the house, be it by simply crossing over a threshold of a door, climbing up or down stairs or a ladder or even levitating outside the house as well as other unique ways of coming and going. --Amy Solomon

Sid the Science Kid – Sid’s Slide to the Side is a fun and educational application which delivers an episode of the terrific PBS kids’ show of the same name, developing into an interactive, animated storybook appisode that reads much like a traditional storybook which includes optional narration as well as illustrations often animated, allowing readers to propel the story with the tap of a finger, bridging the gap between an illustrated storybook and an interactive application, also including two mini-games as well. Parents who do not know of Sid the Science Kid are missing out on a great educational science-based show, bright and colorful, about Sid and his friends from school who learn about science in ways children will find most engaging. --Amy Solomon

Dr. Panda’s Beauty Salon is a charming new app in a series of delightful role-playing applications for children that let them explore different characters such as a doctor, chef in a restaurant, farmer and now a worker at a beauty salon for animals. Fans of these Dr. Panda apps as well as those new to this genre will delight in all that this salon has to offer their animal clients, many of whom have starred in previous applications, as well as a few new faces. --Amy Solomon

AndroidRundown

Simple games will always find a home with me. Blocks Party, come on in. Blocks Party is a game with an easy premise. You guide a rolling ball on a track with plenty of bonuses and obstacles to the end as fast as possible. Now, it’s the type of obstacles — coupled with the breadth of control options — that really made the game such a compelling option for me. The colors were sharp, allowing for the visual separation that made playing a quick-reaction game of this type possible. It was a rich fantasy environment, with beautiful pastels outlining the sky, the ground and everything in between. The green foliage that showed up in most screens evoked memories of the Dorothy prancing down the Yellow Brick Road. --Tre Lawrence

I can speak from personal experience, and I am sure that many of our readers can as well, but there is nothing more nerve-wracking that bringing a smartphone along in a place that can get messy. Be it out in the garden, in the shop, on the lake, or in the kitchen; smartphones take a beating and, for the most part, bounce right back up. I am not talking about falls but more spills and general debris that can accumulate on phones in dirty environments. Picture someone working on a car who has grease and oil on their hands, but still needs to answer their smartphone to answer an important call. Usually they will have to completely clean their hands or bite the bullet and dirty their screen, but now with an incredibly simple and inexpensive KickStarter project that decision will become obsolete. Smart Bags are honestly nothing more than reinforced and fully biodegradable sandwich bags which are tailored to fit around conventional smartphones. People have been doing this for a while but never has their been bags that are disposable and offer the ability to conform to specific brands. Because the plastic is thicker and anti-static the risk of damage is incredibly minimal and any user should feel more than safe bringing their phone with them to the beach or out camping during a misty, muddy afternoon. The plastic still allows use of the phone without the threat of a scratched screen or water damage, and its thickness prevents the bunching and sticking that is common with regular sandwich bags. --Joseph Bertolini

I like simple games, and if there is one nice thing that accelerometer-equipped devices have spawned, it is the proliferation of cool labyrinth games like Crazy Labyrinth 3D, that continually seem to push the envelope. Pleasantly. Crazy Labyrinth 3D is really nice to look at. I loved the graphical three-dimensional representation of the playing area. I could practically smell the wooden surfaces, and liked the glow of the ball and shadows of the barriers. The animations were sharp and responsive; even the slight rebound of the ball looked remarkably real. It looked like the developer spent valuable time and effort on the interface, and I, for one, loved it. --Tre Lawrence

We Are Your App Authority

Having trouble making sense out of the overwhelming number of apps released each week? Have no fear! Just look to 148Apps for the best app reviews on the web. Our reviewers sift through the vast numbers of new apps out there, find the good ones, and write about them in depth. The ones we love become Editor’s Choice, standing out above the many good apps and games with something just a little bit more to offer. Want to see what we've been up to this week? Take a look below for a sampling of our latest reviews. And if you want more, be sure to hit our Reviews Archive.

Kingdoms will always be in peril and brave heroes will always be needed. However the format in which they do their “fighting evil” thing can vary wildly. In Pixel Kingdom they do so by meeting the approaching hordes head-on in a three lane defense. And they look so freaking adorable doing it, too. Pixel Kingdom is a fairly straightforward lane defense game for the most part. Players have a stock of various units they can produce and three lanes to produce them in. They’re all “paid for” by a mana pool that fills up over time, which can also be upgraded to fill faster by using more mana. Units are mostly of the melee/ranged attack varieties but there are a number of variations in-between to unlock and play around with. But what would the heroes be without their monsters? The various hordes of evil contain monsters both big and small. Some can knock heroes back, some weave in and out of lanes, and still others can slow a hero’s movement. Thankfully players have access to a cache of special equipment that can be purchased to make their heroes much more formidable. Assuming they have the coin to pay for it all, of course. --Rob Rich

The future is a very bleak place in indie adventure game, Gemini Rue. Clearly taking inspiration from some sci-fi greats such as Blade Runner, as well as a plethora of film noir, the game tells the story from two different perspectives. One part of the adventure follows a time-travelling assassin, Azriel Odin, as he attempts to find his missing brother, while the other part tracks an amnesiac man called Delta-Six, as he finds himself trapped in a hospital with no clue as to what exactly happened to him. And, of course, their fates overlap in a twisting narrative that will stick in one’s mind for a while to come. At its most basic, Gemini Rue is an adventure game full of the need to tap on items and combine them in some way. Really, though, it’s interactive fiction. The puzzles are hardly taxing, although I did find them interesting. Using more than just a combination of items, players have a communicator that ensures they can contact characters, as well as check their notes and conduct a form of research. It’s a small yet attractive feature, that gives players a sense of control far beyond simply offering up a list of objectives. In typical adventure gaming style, players have a choice of icons to determine how to interact with others, including the ability to look, use, talk or kick. --Jennifer Allen

Touch Press has been publishing astonishing digital books for iPad for as long as the platform has existed. With their earlier apps, like The Elements, The Wasteland, The Barefoot World Atlas and The Sonnets, the company shows a knack for taking a subject many consider dry or academic and turning it a multimedia feast that engages not only students, but anyone with even a passing curiosity in the subject matter. With The Orchestra, the team has raised its own bar, creating much more than a than a digibook. The Orchestra takes users on an exclusive tour of the UK’s Philharmonia and conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen’s interpretations of eight classical pieces from composers like Hayden, Mahler, Stravinsky, and Beethoven in unparalleled fashion. The app is a two-part affair. The home screen guides users to the performances first. Each orchestral work is presented with several videos focusing on key musicians/instruments and on Salonen’s baton. These videos can be rearranged with intuitive gestures to focus on whichever appeals at the moment. Below that, users watch the score scroll by in sync. One can view the entire orchestration, a curated score that focuses on key instruments in the piece, and for those who don’t read music, there is a graphical representation using color-coded bars. --Lisa Caplan

In an App Store full of countless derivations of the same handful of genres, sometimes all it takes for a game to stand out is to just execute on one of those genres really well. That’s what Black Operations does and that’s why anyone interested in mobile real-time strategy should give it a look. Specifically, Black Operations is a 2D sidescrolling strategy game. The playfield is a linear plane with two bases on each end; to win, players must overcome what is essentially a tug-of-war battle to overthrow the enemy’s HQ. It’s a simplified take on real-time strategy that’s been proven successful on mobile phones, consoles, and pretty much anything without a mouse. However, Black Operations does throw in a few new elements to liven things up. In most games like this once a unit is spawned they march forward and attack until they die. Here, though, players use intuitive multi-touch gestures to tell soldiers to move out, retreat, or stay put. This opens up new tactical possibilities like having units rally around a newly-capture watch tower or drawing enemies out by sacrificing individual soldiers. --Jordan Minor

Other 148Apps Network Sites

If you are looking for the best reviews of kids' apps and/or Android apps, just head right over to GiggleApps and AndroidRundown. Here are just some of the reviews these sites served up this week:

GiggleApps

In PICME, my son’s likeness is used to create a boy character who delivers a piano to a friendly lion named Juno, who claims to be able to play, yet in reality needs to practice a great deal to be able to make true music with this instrument. There is much that I really appreciate in this interactive storybook. First, two distinct versions of this tale are included – a movie as well as a storybook, and although the plot of this story remains the same, I especially appreciate how the video is not just a straight animated version of the book. It is also a different yet related experience which adds more characters and nuances that work perfectly in this movie. The book, however, is a little more simplistic, making a nice, tight narrative that I equally appreciate. --Amy Solomon

I would like to introduce readers to a trilogy of dinosaur apps from the Ansel and Clair series of educational applications. I am a huge fan of these apps, as Africa and Paul Revere’s Ride, and now the dinosaur time periods have each been visited by Ansel, a travel photographer from the planet Virtoos and Clair, a Virtoosian robot companion in order to gather photos to teach about these moments in history back on their home planet. There are three sections broken up into different times, specifically the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous, that each goes back to explore the world, learning about the unique dinosaurs what differenceates each of these periods seen in the landscapes of each of these apps, such as the Triassic period which was less green and more barren than the other periods of time --Amy Solomon

My son and I loved this first app – a children’s interactive application allowing one to explore five different truck and car-themed activities, as seen here in the review of this app. More Trucks includes four new scenes that children will also have fun with. Nice children’s narration will explain how these sections work, and parents and children alike will enjoy the familiar nursery rhyme-themed classical music that Duck Duck Moose is known for. These sections are uniformly bright and colorful, including the same stylized looks that fans have come to expect from these applications. --Amy Solomon

AndroidRundown

I’m a sucker for retro games. There is just something charming about going into the past with today’s hardware. I get especially teary-eyed when 8-bit graphics appear. Kairosoft’s Ninja Village is that type of tearjerker that I’m talking about. Set in ancient Japan, it it is a city simulation set during the period of feudalism. It’s craftily set as a unification adventure that involves ninja clans, so in one swoop, I was getting some awesome backstory angles to work with.Yes, the game came with retro looks, down the pleasant (for me) shaky movements and blended color. I liked the detail the developer put into creating a fun-looking environment. The gameplay was a potent mix of civilization simulation and domination principles. Frankly, I really enjoyed the intricate nature of this title. Its game engine was pretty cool, and a lot of thought seemed to have been put into the basic logic. I was responsible for training and upkeep of my ninja warriors. A key component of this was the ability to manage my non-infinite resources. First, I had to do stimulate basic commerce to increase my funds; villagers needed food, and food also brought valuable cash when sold to merchants. I was able to build industry like farms and also able to build infrastructure for my growing clan. --Tre Lawrence

I realize that I am not the only person who misplaces their wallet, but I find it hard to believe that there are people on this earth who lose theirs more consistently than I do. For years I have been casually looking into different ways to help me organize my life, and there are a few products on the market that allow the user to remotely find their missing, tagged items. Obviously, the problem here is that these products, for the most part, are separate items and are just as prone to being forgotten and misplaced as the wallet itself. So why not put the device on the smartphone? Everyone has one and if implemented well enough it can work as a symbiotic relationship. Fortunately for all of humanity there is a project floating around on KickStarter right now that might be the world’s solution to the endless struggle to keep tabs on arguably the two most important items in the average person’s life. Called SmartWallit, this ambitious startup has developed a product that will ingeniously alert its owner if either the wallet or phone gets left behind. --Joseph Bertolini

The Jurassic Park franchise was the quintessential morality tale. It’s what we needed in the 90s: a reminder of the dangers of mankind subverting nature. Dinosaurs are interesting, and having a zoo full of them would be exceptionally cool, but only bad things could happen in the end. Keeping prehistoric beasts as confined pests is rarely a good idea, especially the carnivorous ones. Jurassic Park Builder, a game from Ludia Inc, is just the type of title that can fix melancholy. It put me in charge of developing theme park populated such as the one on the novel and movie it derives it name from. It was a park simulation with a twist. I was tasked with building and expanding space, as well as making sure my livestock flourished. The originating story was close to the original; I found dinosaur DNA fortuitously trapped in amber, and was able to create viable eggs with the DNA. From then on, it became a matter of suave management of resources. I got to pick whether I wanted terrestrial animals or aquatic ones. I also had to feed the creature based on defined diets. --Tre Lawrence

Your Trusted Source for App Reviews

Having trouble making sense out of the overwhelming number of apps released each week? Have no fear! Just look to 148Apps for the best app reviews on the web. Our reviewers sift through the vast numbers of new apps out there, find the good ones, and write about them in depth. The ones we love become Editor’s Choice, standing out above the many good apps and games with something just a little bit more to offer. Want to see what we've been up to this week? Take a look below for a sampling of our latest reviews. And if you want more, be sure to hit our Reviews Archive.

WB and NetherRealm’s original DC Comics fighting game Injustice: Gods Among Us has been adapted for the iPad, and that doesn’t just mean that they ported down a full console fighting game, or just made an Infinity Blade clone like some are wont to do; no, they converted this into an actual touchscreen-friendly game that’s free-to-play, though definitely encourages spending money. The actual combat is dramatically less complex than the Street Fighters of the world, because players have three basic actions: tap to do a light attack, swipe forward to do a heavy attack, and tap & hold with two fingers to block. Combos will call up swiping actions to knockdown the opponent, and special moves will require different inputs to unleash those attacks. The complexity comes in with using the three chracters efficiently; not only is it about letting them go to the sidelines to regenerate health, but also to swap in characters whose special power meters are recharging while on the sidelines. As well, different special attacks have different effects that are useful in various scenarios. I like to keep one character with a power drain effect with me when fighting bosses so as to limit the number of times they can do massive damage. The combat strikes a great balance between being simplified for the platform, while keeping enough strategy to be interesting. --Carter Dotson

Mittens, both the name of this app and of the cat which the game revolves around, is the latest physics puzzler from Disney. The company had an extreme amount of success with Where’s My Water a couple of years ago and this is definitely a notable follow-up. As one would expect from a Disney game, the visual assets are top-notch. The cartoony visuals and cute cut scenes definitely feel like something Disney would have a hand in. Players interact with the level components by tapping and swiping, and swiping an electrical wire or piece of wood will cut it. Players can only interact with the level components and can’t directly control Mittens. All of the normal laws of physics apply, so Mittens falls and bounces, and will automatically grab onto ledges. Besides static environmental elements like wires, awnings, and planks of wood, other animals also appear in the levels, like birds to latch onto. Ultimately, the goal is to make it to a floating milk bottle. When he finally gets to it, Mittens does a little dance. --David Rabinowitz

Mailbox represents a perspective shift to email, in that it treats the inbox not as a list of messages hanging around one’s neck like so many albatrosses, but as a list of tasks that need to be completed. So, reading an email and being done means that it can be removed the list like a completed task, meaning it is archived from the inbox. Messages can be ‘delayed’, making them temporarily hidden from the inbox, reappearing at a later time defined by the user to be completed later. But, the important thing is that they are removed from the inbox, making inbox zero a potential daily occurrence. --Carter Dotson

BADLAND is a quite beautiful amalgamation of side scrolling platform action, with a dash of Endless Runner about it. The latter part comes more from the one touch controls that ensure that BADLAND is easy to play for any ability, albeit not necessarily easy to complete thanks to a series of challenging obstacles. 40 levels pave the way and, while early stages are quite easy, later stages prove rather fearsome and tough. Even better, there’s plenty of replayability through the acquisition of clones which boost the rating of a level, once captured. BADLAND might sound immensely restricted due to its one touch controls, but that’s quite far from the truth. At first, tapping on the screen is used more to keep the cuddly yet mildly sinister creature afloat, thrusting them through each stage and avoiding simple obstacles. Get pushed off the screen and it’s game over, but when early structures simply consist of pillars and platforms, it’s no great hardship. As things progress, however, and the player learns more about how to play, the imaginative nature of BADLAND shines through. Orange colored globes affect the size of the creature, either making him grow or shrink to some degree. Both have advantages and disadvantages, the former allowing him to crush certain things, and the latter allowing him to sneak through small gaps. Other power-ups emerge, too, such as one that allows him to stick to walls or roll at speed through the scenery. --Jennifer Allen

Other 148Apps Network Sites

If you are looking for the best reviews of kids' apps and/or Android apps, just head right over to GiggleApps and AndroidRundown. Here are just some of the reviews these sites served up this week:

GiggleApps

Alex The Handyman – Kids Educational App is a cute and fun app allowing children to use various tools to help friends with a variety of home repairs. Ten scenes are included, each one bright and colorful to look at as one meets a friendly animal character who needs help. From fixing fence posts and ladders to a tree house, to inflating a tire on a car or mending a tear in a dress, Alex the Handyman is a true jack-of-all-trades as he takes on tasks such as sewing, painting, spot-cleaning stains or light gardening. Children will need to choose the correct tool for the job, such as wrench to tighten a leaky faucet or screwdriver to repair a toy, that will become highlighted if help is needed. --Amy Solomon

Zachy the Robot: Quest for the Museum Treasures is a terrific interactive app that delves into different topics of natural history in a way that is sure to captivate children and their adults. This is the second Zachy the Robot app. This one takes place again in Robocity, focusing on a group of robot friends, the Robocity Repairbots, who help their town with their problems, as their wheelhouse is fixing structural issues in buildings, as seen in the first app which focused on engineering. Here, the gang is brought back to add exhibits to the newly built and empty Robocity Natural History Museum, explained in the bright, colorful and fun animated intro. I love how excited these characters are by the topic of natural history – an enthusiasm that parents will hope rubs off on their children. --Amy Solomon

Most adults remember playing “memory” – also known as “concentration” – as children, where cards or tiles are laid out in pairs face down and players have to take turns turning over two cards looking for mates, remembering where the other cards are in order to create matches. This style of game is also a very popular one in an application form, be it the app’s main focus or an additional section found in a storybook so it is very nice to see a “memory” style game that really stands out from the pack in terms of game play and overall quality. --Amy Solomon

AndroidRundown

Nimble Quest, the latest from NimbleBit, starts off with an immediate nod to its direct influence, Snake. Before mobile games exploded, everyone enjoyed Snake on a Nokia mobile phone, because what else was there to do besides play Snake? So, immediately, it seems like there may not be much to this at all. Nope. Nimble Quest takes that simple concept and makes it deeper and more fun than it has any right to be. It starts by adding a bit of strategy to the standard Snake gameplay of turning left and right, avoiding walls and enemies. See, players control a character that has a special attack ability that triggers when near enemies, and they use that to take out enemies. Other heroes can be collected as drops from enemies that form parts of the snake, and can use their own individual attacks. Now, enemies can attack as well, so it becomes about staying out of danger, as the heroes have health bars that will quickly diminish, and if the lead hero dies, it’s game over. So, there’s a strategy to approaching the enemies, one that is about taking as little damage as possible. --Carter Dotson

This week’s KickStarter Spotlight focuses on an ambitious, and impressively polished product that is squarely aimed at parents who are concerned about their child’s computer usage called MiiPC. It is not so much the content as the amount of time wasted that most parents worry about, and it is a fact that technology can be a major distraction for young people with homework. I can attest that even in the course of writing this post, I have looked away to a USA Today update and watched a few YouTube videos that were sent to me by a few Facebook friends. What MiiPC aims to deliver is a computer that, in all honesty, is not much more than a converted, overpowered tablet in a box. The main feature is the complete control parents have over the device. From setting time restrictions on apps or websites, to monitoring exactly what activity a user is doing at any time; MiiPC allows a parent to have total peace of mind while still ensuring their children get an appropriate introduction to the vast wonder of the internet. --Joseph Bertolini

Fate of the Pharaoh is a fun simulation set in, well, ancient Egypt. In this game, I worked as an Adviser to Pharaoh, tasked with rebuilding the empire after a victorious but devastating war.
To make it easy, it’s a G5 game, so I expected nice graphics. I wasn’t disappointed. I found the rich graphics, sharp animations and fine detail that we all have come to expect from G5. There were two modes: Adventure Mode (timed) and Relaxed Mode. Anyone who has read my reviews knows I am a sucker for tutorials, and thus, this gamee found a way to my heart early on. The teaching section allowed me to use taps to get a basic understanding of gameplay: accruing money, and the different ways you can spend it. I learned that to progress, I had to finish tasks and manage resources.--Tre Lawrence

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Need to know the latest and greatest apps each and every week? Look no further than 148Apps. Our reviewers comb through the vast numbers of new apps out there, find the good ones, and write about them in depth. The ones we love become Editor’s Choice, standing out above the many good apps and games with something just a little bit more to offer. Want to see what we've been up to this week? Take a look below for a sampling of our latest reviews. And if you want more, be sure to hit our Reviews Archive.

Creating an iOS app isn’t just a matter of typing in code and seeing what happens. Well, it can be but it’s not recommended. Instead, it’s far wiser to create mock ups and design the general look of the app, checking it all works and makes sense. This is where AppCooker comes into its own. It’s an app that allows users to work on app mock ups, their app’s icon and even the marketing side of things, all within this one tool. It might appear expensive at first glance, but it should prove hugely helpful to designers. AppCooker could have been intimidating to use but I found it didn’t take too long to figure out. Creating a new project is quite simple with options dictating what format the app will be on (either iPhone or iPad), followed by an easy to use mockup creator. A series of wireframes and widgets make it possible to set up the basics, before linking each screen together to, hopefully, form a fully fledged app design. Being so visual and informative, it’s simple to look through and work out if something is missing or whether everything works ergonomically. --Jennifer Allen

The team over at Zen Studios has made a living taking our favorite characters and worlds, shaking them up a bit, and finding a way to squeeze them onto the player’s platform of choice. Despite their steady support of iOS through DLC for Zen Pinball, the team hasn’t released a new app on the platform in over a year. Can they channel their collective efforts to start off Star Wars Pinball on the right foot, or are they looking a little rusty this time around? Matching up LucasFilm (and now Disney’s) coveted Star Wars universe with pinball seems like a match made in nerd heaven. The lush back story, compelling characters and intriguing locales all seem custom fit for the world of the steel ball. Face it, swapping out flippers with lightsabers in battle just makes sense. Now if only they could find a way to get Yoda to shut the heck up. --Blake Grundman

It’s not often that I can become so enthralled with such a slow paced game that offers very simple techniques with its gameplay. However, NightSky provides beautiful visuals, blissful gameplay and an overall peaceful time while going through each area of the game. NightSky sets a mood and that’s exactly how this title wins with its physics-based puzzle gameplay. It starts with a short story of a boy who finds a glowing sphere on a beach and ends up taking it home with him where he begins having strange dreams of the sphere in many peculiar places. This is where the gameplay takes place, as players control the sphere by easily swiping or tapping the screen throughout many of these unique surroundings that are full of obstacles. The light ambient soundtrack makes for an even more calming experience. --Andrew Stevens

Part of a continuing trend of photography apps that aim to subtly change the appearance of a photo, rather than turn things too garish, Repix is a simple yet useful tool. Repix uses a brush style interface, requiring users to brush their finger along an image to add the desired effect. It immediately empowers the user, ensuring they don’t have to rely upon an entire filter doing what they wish it to do. Nine brushes are available in this free package, with more purchasable via the in-app store. Impressively, these add on brushes can be previewed before purchasing. A useful feature that more artistic apps should offer. The bundled in brushes are a suitable bunch to start out with, too, including tools for adding charcoal coloring, a flare effect as well as adding a cartoon or poster style to the image. Painting with one’s finger means it’s easy to implement, as well as undo through a comprehensive undo button, as well as an eraser brush. --Jennifer Allen

Other 148Apps Network Sites

If you are looking for the best reviews of kids' apps and/or Android apps, just head right over to GiggleApps and AndroidRundown. Here are just some of the reviews these sites served up this week:

GiggleApps

Tizzy Driving Adventure is a charming universal driving simulator for young app users. I do love role-playing apps in general, as they can foster a great deal of creativity in children. Tizzy Driving Adventure is the digital equivalent to the driving toy that kids love where one can pretend to drive while turning an attached steering wheel. Here, too, after choosing from a boy or girl character, the user while driving and steering has the point-of-view of looking out the front window and onto the street. --Amy Solomon

Dandelion is an interactive universal app with a wonderful sense of style, developed as an app with a message about bullying. There is a lot that I enjoy about this app, recently chosen as an application of special interest in the books category by iTunes. The most striking element of this app is the sense of style, shown not quite in black and white, as more of a sepia-tone look is included, adding the slightly warmer shades of subtle desaturated browns – an interesting choice – which allows areas of the screen to pop softly, adding a vintage, almost timeless look to this app that is also quite modern-looking as seen on the screen of one’s device. --Amy Solomon

I am pleased to see that a new Dr Panda role-playing app is now available, Dr. Panda’s Supermarket, a universal app that allows children to explore ten shopping mini-games from both the point-of-view of the shopper as well as store workers. We love the various role-playing games by Dr. Panda, as they are bright and fun as well as including a cast of re-occurring animals and their families as we have tended to them in a hospital, served the adults in a restaurant app, taken care of these characters’ animal children at daycare, grown fruits and vegetables for them at a farm, and now help these characters shop in a supermarket. --Amy Solomon

AndroidRundown

The Simpsons is a national institution. It embodies everything so wrong — and right — with our family units. Long before South Park, The Simpsons made us gasp in horror and rueful self-recognition. Thus, for anyone who grew up in that era, The Simpsons Tapped Out should be a welcome trip to yesteryear. Homer is definitely Homeric in this game. Inexplicably, he is still the safety inspector at Springfield Nuclear Power Plant, and, as we all came to expect, his incompetence (and apparent love of goofing around on a tablet) finally destroyed Springfield. My job was to manage this construction simulation game and rebuild Springfield, as well as find the other eponymous members of the Simpson clan. --Tre Lawrence

While many of us are not privileged enough to have a smart home that operates with more autonomy than an average car, the future certainly is here as cost decreases and standardization has increased. As costs come down and a newer generation starts purchasing homes for the first time these products will see a large spike in sales, and suddenly there will be a battle for footing in this burgeoning industry. We have seen this in products like the Nest thermostat and different “smart” refrigerators which put the smart home appliance in the collective conscious of the general public. While the idea of a refrigerator or oven with Twitter capabilities is fundamentally absurd, the general idea of having a fridge that communicates with the consumer is not. Security systems have been doing this for a while now; giving their customers the ability to lock and arm their houses by means of a smartphone. I think that it is the dream of many homeowners to be able to monitor their home from anywhere on the globe. The goal is summed up in the image of an exhausted worker leaving a late shift and on the way home he turns on his lights, preheats the oven, turns up the temperature, and even starts playing a favorite album over his stereo system. Theoretically, this is all possible and incredibly desirable...So, enter Prizm... --Joseph Bertolini

A lot of people — the whole wide world, seemingly — are not too happy with Google’s decision to discontinue its popular Reader application. If Google Keep (it’s newly unveiled cloud-supported note taking app) is supposed to be a mea culpa, Google might already be back in our hearts. Maybe. The Android note-taking space is not sparse by any means. There are plenty of note apps, and the competition creates a very high bar. Google’s last offering, Notebook was okay, but lacked oomph. Thus, even Google needs a pretty good offering to stay abreast. Keep, I think, does that. --Tre Lawrence

Week-in and week-out, the 148Apps reviewers comb through the vast numbers of new apps out there, find the good ones, and write about them in depth. The ones we love become Editor’s Choice, standing out above the many good apps and games with something just a little bit more to offer. Want to see what we've been up to this week? Take a look below for a sampling of our latest reviews. And if you want more, be sure to hit our Reviews Archive.

I never would have thought that carpet could be so much fun when incorporated into a game. This mind-bending puzzler may be one of the most innovative iOS games I’ve played in a long time. For those who don’t know, Farsh is persian for carpet. The game was created by award-winning indie game developer Mahdi Bahrami and it is port of the free PC version. Although it’s based off the PC game, there have been a few improvements to make it even better on iOS. --Angela LaFollette

Ridiculous Fishing from Vlambeer, Zach Gage, and Greg Wohlwend as well has been on a long, strange journey to the App Store, with one major pratfall in particular: Gamenauts’ 2011 title Ninja Fishing, which Vlambeer describes as an outright clone of their original Radical Fishing Flash game. Being cloned it distressed Vlambeer enough that the studio considered shutting down at one point. However, a year and a half later, the studio’s own version is finally out, and it was worth the wait. --Carter Dotson

The in-built Mail app is useful but it’s far from essential or visually pleasing. It does the job and nothing more than that. This is where apps like Incredimail come swooping in, demonstrating how the experience can be so much better and, no doubt, saving the regular iPad user plenty of time. Things immediately start out well for Incredimail, thanks to its start up screen making it a breeze to set up. There are options for things such as Gmail, Yahoo! and AOL but it’s also possible to add any account, providing one knows the relevant IMAP settings. It takes a little while for the app to import all the emails, especially if there are plenty available, but it’s a one time thing. Future loading takes a lot less time. --Jennifer Allen

The RockSteady XS is a portable, micro Bluetooth speaker designed for use with any audio source that supports the Bluetooth 3.0 protocol, including iPads, iPhones, and other mobile or computing devices. It also includes a audio port for a line in, and a full-sized USB port for audio in and device charging, as well. There are a host of buttons on the front of the unit, which can be used to play, pause, forward, or reverse playback with many audio apps, like Pandora, Music, or Rdio. --Rob LeFebvre

Other 148Apps Network Sites

If you are looking for the best reviews of kids' apps and/or Android apps, just head right over to GiggleApps and AndroidRundown. Here are just some of the reviews these sites served up this week:

The Adventures of Sophie the Sweater is a gem of an app, an interactive storybook which allows children to make choices that will affect the direction this tale takes, as this is the story of Sophie, a sweater who experiences many different lives with a varied group of people as they re-use and re-cycle her into other garments, craft ideas or other objects which illustrate how to use her material. I did enjoy a great deal the Choose Your Own Adventure or Which Way books as a child, and I have begun to read these titles to my son as well. I do love this app as I think it brings an intuitiveness to these kinds of books... --Amy Solomon

Bugs and Numbers is a delightful universal application – a collection of bug-themed mini-games that re-enforces beginner math concepts as well as other subjects such as understanding one’s left and right, shape matching, sorting, sequencing and tracing of numbers and shapes. Each one of these 18 mini-games includes a bright and engaging look, oftentimes including bug elements as well as an interesting dichotomy as some of these sections are quite beautiful to look at, while others include distressed qualities that show bugs in less than pristine conditions that children may also find interesting. --Amy Solomon

Fey Mouse is an interactive picture book based on the title of the same name, developed by Blue Quoll as the first in their series of Australian Vintage Picture Books, adapting out-of-print titles and making them accessible to children from around the world. Fey Mouse is the story of a cat born into a mouse family, misunderstood by distant relatives and living in the shadow of their successful lives. --Amy Solomon

It’s a New Year. Resolutions abound. Fitocracy might just be the tool to help folks keep the ones related to healthier living. It’s an app that uniquely melds excessive with a competitive process that “rewards” completion of tasks. In doing this, it looks to avoid being just another fitness application, and to potentially become a full-fledged life coach. The app itself comes with a mature, clean look, with trademark purple hues making a starring appearance. The app is made up of three main pieces, accessible via the left side pane: Feed, Track and Your Profile. The Feed maintained my interactions with other “Fitocrats” all around. I could talk, encourage and request feedback from Fitocrats. --Tre Lawrence

This is a special edition of our Kickstarter Spotlight column, because a promising turn-based strategy game that is planned to release on Android has just launched its Kickstarter campaign. Sinster Design’s Telepath Tactics is taking a second shot at getting funded on Kickstarter, and there’s plenty of reasons to care about this throwback to the days of 2D grid-based turn-based strategy games like Shining Force and Fire Emblem. The game has hopes to be a deep single- and multiplayer experience, but it needs the help of backers in order to reach its goal.
As the title intimates, telepathy plays a big part, as the game takes place in Sinister Design’s Telepath RPG series, full of characters with powerful mental abilities. These not only represent the standard magical ability tropes such as healing and ranged attacks, but it’s also possible to do things like push and pull enemies into water or lava, which will do damage to them. It’s also just funny to push an enemy into a fiery grave. It’s also possible to do things like build bridges (or destroy them), freeze water to walk across, and set traps to help keep enemies away, or to draw them in to a strategic disadvantage. --Joseph Bertolini

Good racing games need not require the fastest, most realistic cars. Sometimes they don’t even require cars with engines at all. Meet Slingshot Racing from Bolt Creative and publisher Crescent Moon Games. These cars are propelled by slingshotting around grappling points spread throughout the tracks, trying to jostle with other cars, hit speed boosts aligned on the tracks, and just finish as quickly as possible. The controls are simple: tap and hold on the screen to latch on to the nearest grapple point, and release to let go. The controls work 99% of the time, though rarely a different grapple point will be hit than what the player expects, but it’s otherwise easy enough to pick up on. --Carter Dotson

Every week, the 148Apps reviewers sort through the latest apps, find the good ones, and write about them in depth. The ones we love become Editor’s Choice, standing out above the many good apps and games with something just a little bit more to offer. Want to see what we've been up to this week? Take a look below for a sampling of our latest reviews. And if you want more, be sure to hit our Reviews Archive.

Photoshop Touch for phone (yes phone, not iPhone) is essentially the same app as Photoshop Touch for iPad, which Adobe released last year. Optimized for the iPhone 4S and 5, the same features are present, but the UI has been redesigned for the smaller screen. The app works well, but the small screen size is limiting, even for those of us with small fingers. Still, for Photoshop devotes, the integration of Adobe’s Creative Cloud makes it easy(ish) to start a project on one device and finish it later on another or import it – layers intact – to Photoshop proper on a PC. --Lisa Kaplan

[itmsapp: 589440659]

Console and PC/Mac gamers might recall the franchise, Mini Ninjas, the loveable if slightly too simplistic adventure game geared towards the younger end of the market. Unlike its older sibling, the iOS version doesn’t offer anywhere near as much exploration, instead focusing on a very popular genre: the endless runner. Players control Hiro, as he runs from left to right in his bid to rescue animals and survive as long as possible. Obstacles such as boulders and explosive barrels must be jumped over, while enemy ninjas must be taken out with a well timed tap of the attack button. A choice of two control methods are available, the default method involves tapping on the left hand side of the screen in order to jump, while the right hand side initiates an attack. It doesn’t feel quite as natural as it should, so I’d recommend switching to the other form which involves tapping anywhere to jump and a specific button to attack. --Jennifer Allen

[itmsapp: 577106023]

Just when it seems like it’s time to give up on a repetitive mobile gaming template, a game like Shadow Escaper comes along and makes up for the next months’ worth of uninspired clones. It’s not a reinvention of the endless runner by any means. However, it is such a beautiful, well-executed take on the genre that players will remember why it keeps sticking around. At the beginning of the Shadow Escaper players pick a creature of the night, either a boy werewolf or girl demon, and then have to guide them through daytime chases from fascist angels and other heavenly beings. Using the silky smooth controls, they’ll seamlessly go from sliding under gates to jumping over falling barrels to running down twisting town roads to even gliding over bodies of water thanks to the occasional power-ups. Players are also encouraged to gather energy during each run because once the sun goes down the characters change into their powerful night forms and unleash whatever energy they have back at the enemy. --Jordan Minor

[itmsapp: 587291971]

Since I’ve been playing games for the majority of my life on consoles, I’m fairly awkward and clumsy when it comes to playing them on a computer. Well, it’s mostly the action games. I just can’t adjust to the controls. This is why I never managed to play Capsized when it first came out. I tried, believe me I did, but the keyboard controls were too much for me. On the iPad, though? Much better. Even if it’s a little “floaty.” Stranded on a mysterious alien world, a lone space explorer must locate his surviving crew mates and survive long enough to get back home. Easier said than done when a decent portion of the planet is either carnivorous. Capsized+ takes all the exploration and combat of the original and reworks it to fit on the iPad. The virtual controls are similar to most twin-stick shooters with a few exceptions, so it shouldn’t take players long to acclimate to the new interface. Then they can use commendations earned through play to upgrade their arsenal, their jetpack’s fuel tank, or even unlock new suit designs. --Rob Rich

[itmsapp: 516387847]

Other 148Apps Network Sites

If you are looking for the best reviews of kids' apps and/or Android apps, just head right over to GiggleApps and AndroidRundown. Here are just some of the reviews these sites served up this week:

GiggleAppsI Need My Monster is an interactive storybook app based on the children’s book of the same name, now also including a few extras such as a memory-styled matching game and a “Simon” styled mini-game. I know this title well, as I Need My Monster is a story that is often read out loud at our local library’s story time, and when borrowing this book, the pages are worn from being enjoyed by many children. --Amy Solomon

Sofia the First: Story Theatre is a delightful, interactive app based on the children’s animated series on Disney Junior. We are not familiar with Sofia the First in our home so I did not have any expectations about this book. I am happy to say that I am very pleasantly surprised with what this app has to offer. The plot of this story is both very traditional but also has a modern sensibility to it as this tale opens up with Sofia’s mom marrying into a royal family. In this blended family, at first Sofia feels very out of place by becoming newly royal as well as not being treated very well by her new siblings – especially her step-sister. --Amy Solomon

Wildlife Jigsaw Puzzles 123 – Fun Learning Puzzle Game For Kids is a new puzzle app from GiggleUp, a wonderful developer with a hearty library of apps including a very nice selection of puzzle applications.
Wildlife Jigsaw Puzzles 123 is a delightful collection of seven scenes with themes such as Jungle Friends, Forest Critters, Desert Folks or Snow Buddies. --Amy Solomon

AndroidRundown

Wordsplosion from (Concrete Software) is a word guessing game that taxes the patience, gets fingernails bitten and raises blood pressure. In a good way. It was a pulse-racing game of pick five with a limited amount of tries set against a clock. To win, I had to take the opening hint (I got the first letter) and figure out the remaining four. A wrong guess or a time out counted as a try, so it kind of made sense to guess valid words with the hope of picking up a few more right letters. The correct letters were set aside even if I guessed a word that had them in the wrong position; to explain, if the correct word was “BURST” and I guessed “BRAWN” instead, the “R” was retained in a hold space above the guessing grid. In this way, it was possible to narrow down the alphabet and create a word scramble of sorts. I also got hints, and success yielded more hints. --Tre Lawrence

Platformers may be one of the oldest and simplest forms of video games; so it makes sense that they are the most widely auditioned game type on KickStarter. Even more common are the pixel art varieties because of their ease of production and popular appearance. What we have here for today’s KickStarter Spotlight is something that does not deviate too far from the formula, and yet still manages to impress. The project’s name is Another Castle, and the Mario references and similarities do not end there. The overarching plot of the game involves an intrepid, accidental explorer in a quest for some randomly chosen artifact; be it his girlfriend or a flaming sword. The game is very self-aware and makes it part of the story that it blatantly sends the player from castle to castle because, of course, the item is always “in another castle”. --Joseph Bertolini

[img id="sc03-180x300.png"]Zach Gage’s SpellTower is a game that is a long time coming to Android; released initially in 2011 (and winner of the 2011 Best App Ever award for word games, with a 2012 runner-up finish), two years later it’s now available for Android devices. The goal is to spell words on the board by connecting a line between letters that are adjacent horizontally, vertically, or diagonally. Forming a word eliminate the tiles on the board, the important thing being that the tiles will fall when a match is made. Thus, the game becomes not just about forming words, but about the interplay of the tiles as well. Thus, the game is more than just a word game, it’s a puzzle game as well. The game reportedly had its genesis in that the creators of another game, Puzzlejuice, described the game to Zach Gage and he made his interpretation of it, despite not being a fan of word games. --Carter Dotson

Every week, the 148Apps reviewers sort through the latest apps, find the good ones, and write about them in depth. The ones we love become Editor’s Choice, standing out above the many good apps and games with something just a little bit more to offer. Want to see what we've been up to this week? Take a look below for a sampling of our latest reviews. And if you want more, be sure to hit our Reviews Archive.

Files App is a pretty handy utility to have around on an iOS device. It makes it quite simple to browse as well as transfer files and hardly any set up is required. Offering a simple and clear interface, the opening screen displays everything the user could need at first glance. Folders and thumbnails of files are pictured, with it down to the user to organize things however they want. A tap of the plus sign, intuitively, leads users to adding content for themselves. It’s possible to import photos from the camera roll, as well as get files directly from within the Mail app. I’d have liked the ability to import all my photos at once with a select all button, but otherwise, it’s smooth sailing. Adding files from a Mac or PC is just as easy, offering USB based options as well as a way to browse via a web browser. This took no time at all to set up and it was very easy for me to drag and drop files between my laptop and iPhone. Import features are also available via Dropbox, Box and Google Drive. --Jennifer Allen

[itmsapp: 595075818]

The only thing more daunting than reviewing a game from a significant iOS series is doing so when it’s surrounded by both hype and controversy. It’s probably fairly common knowledge at this point that Real Racing 3 has gone free-to-play, which is where the bulk of the controversy comes from as lots of fans are understandably worried about what such a change could mean for their beloved franchise. It’s also been widely publicized that Firemonkeys has incorporated what they call “Time Shifted Multiplayer” into their new baby, which is something that they feel could change multiplayer mobile games forever. These are both complex issues that warrant some discussion but the important thing to note is that Real Racing 3 is very, very awesome no matter how people might feel about it going free to play. --Rob Rich

[itmsapp: 556164008]

I receive what seems like hundreds of emails a week. Many of these emails are exclusive offers and discounts to my favorite stores, but they quickly become buried as new email arrives in my inbox. While it would be ideal to send these to a separate folder, I still have to take the time to sort through them all to see who has the best deals this weekend. Sift solves the dilemma of cluttered shopping emails by combining them into an HD shopping experience. Instead of sorting and organizing to find the best deals, use Sift to create a personalized shopping list. --Angela LaFollette

[itmsapp: 498507056]

The Gods: Rebellion is literally the Chinese version of God of War. Not only is it made by a Chinese developer (with some interface elements that periodically match) but it’s also the same essential story as Sony’s action series: man rebelling against the gods, but this time it involves the Chinese mythical character Fu Xi fighting for mankind’s freedom against a bunch of deities, by killing everything that stands in his way. --Carter Dotson

[itmsapp: 595677668]

Other 148Apps Network Sites

If you are looking for the best reviews of kids' apps and/or Android apps, just head right over to GiggleApps and AndroidRundown. Here are just some of the reviews these sites served up this week:

GiggleAppsJust Going to the Dentist – Little Critter is an adaptation of the title of the same name – part of the Little Critter series of storybooks now available in application form. As the name may imply, this is the story of the Little Critter’s trip to the dentist. In this world, Little Critter is an anthropomorphic animal – a little boy who has been found to be relatable to by children for many years. --Amy Solomon

Sleep Well My Pet! is a simple and sweet collection of sleeping animals, relaxing to children, hopefully helpful in lulling them into slumber as well. Easy to use, one can watch a slide show or scroll through these sleepy, charming images of animals such as dog, panda, pig or lion – all with their eyes closed as they rest. Non-mammal animals are included such as flamingos or green frog which are interesting as well as peaceful images. --Amy Solomon

Futaba Classroom Games For Kids is a unique game app for children, educational as well as fun. This app, a digital quiz game for both multi – as well as single players, really stands out because an adult can program the questions children answer to a wide age range of abilities from preschool age through the 10th grade as well as easy, medium or hard questions for these grades. --Amy Solomon

AndroidRundownFeb 28, 2013Share This

Amelia vs the Marathon is a fun game with a fun storyline that brings us back to the wisful times when kneecapping rivals was all the rage. Amelia is an up-and-coming marathon runner with more than a bit of talent. So much so, that the current champion decides to, uh, slow her progress, Tonya Harding style. Using henchmen and objects, the champion decides to derail Amelia’s dreams. Physically. The game was an action thriller, and it had the graphics to match. The excellent use of colors started with the stills in the cutscene. Bright primaries buttressed with changing backgrounds worked well to frame the gameplay. The animations were delightful cartoony. --Tre Lawrence

In past columns, we have taken a look at a few different devices that were created to help silently or casually display notifications. The majority of these are lamps or LED strips that have built in WiFi or Bluetooth technology. One was a charm that attaches to a purse or bad and lit up for calls, messages, and other notifications. These are all great for lounging around the house or driving in the car but their day to day practicality remain a question mark. Being a college student I spend a lot of time in places where I would like to receive notifications but cannot because of the distraction to those around me. Obviously, my phone cannot start blaring Alice in Chains during a Circuits lecture, but I will not say that I am one to strictly abstain from texting in class. Those who work in office settings may find themselves in similar situations with email and annoying SMS notifications. Hailing from Seattle, the engineering duo of Paul Hornikx and Rudi Beijnen have an incredibly simple, elegant, and practical solution to all of these problems. Their idea is called the Embrace+, and is an idea so ludicrously simple that I have a hard time coming to grips with the fact that I did not think of it first. --Joseph Bertolini

Real Racing 3 is a the rare kind of stand-out title that just isn’t frequently seen on mobile. It’s the third in a long-running series from a prominent developer, EA’s Firemonkeys, born from the merger of the creators of Real Racing, Flight Control, and Spy Mouse with the studio that made Dead Space and Mass Effect Infiltrator for mobile. It’s got production values that are rarely seen on mobile, and a hype cycle that’s out of this world by comparison. The constant release schedule on mobile platforms means that it’s always game in, game out. Done, done, on to the next one. For a mobile game to attract pre-release attention, it has to be something truly special. Real Racing 3 is just that kind of game. It’s visually-stunning, and its business model, depending on its success, could have a massive impact on how mobile gaming works in the future. But as a game? Well, it has its fun moments, but it falls short of greatness, of being truly compelling as a game. --Carter Dotson

This week at 148Apps.com all eyes were still pointed at Firemint's upcoming Real Racing 3. Site founder Jeff Scott writes, "Sister site Pocket Gamer editor Richard Brown discovered that Real Racing 3 is showing up in Game Center. The good news is that means it’s been approved by Apple and it can’t be long before the release now. While it’s not out yet, this does bring up something interesting. Something I noticed in the Game Center achievements lends a little to the accuracy of rumors and theories I’ve been hearing that Real Racing 3 will be released as a free to play game.

Last week we took you through a three part series about the history of the App Store icon, Real Racing. Rob Rich covered the history and design of the first two games in the series. He also covered time-shifted multiplayer and other new features expected in Real Racing 3. An excellent series and well worth a read. One thing we didn’t cover is how the game will be monetized as it has yet to be announced. That monetization method is likely to have huge implications on how the game is received by the fans of the series."

GiggleApps.com writer Amy Solomon contributed a review of Whack A Bone: "Whack A Bone is a wonderful app for iPad that is truly an educational delight, teaching about the anatomy of bones found in the human body.

Nicely sectioned into groups, users will learn about the bones that make up one’s core, such as cranium, sternum or vertebrae which is grouped here into three different categories – cervical, thoracic and lumbar, as well as the arm and leg bones, each consisting of its own section as well.

To play this pirate-themed anatomy game, place the bones from the different sections back to their rightful places inside a skeleton with the direction of a talking parrot whose attitude kids will find witty and fun."

And what week would be complete without a KickStarter Spotlight on AndroidRundown.com. This week, writer Joseph Bertolini focuses on Freedom Planet: "It has been a while since we have really taken an in depth look to one of the fields in which KickStarter has benefited the most; indie game developers. As most everyone knows, indie game sales have exploded over the last few years; bolstered by better distribution methods like Steam and a more willing Sony and Microsoft. It goes without saying that a strong indie market is one of the most important factors to a great gaming industry. Recognizing this, our choice for this week’s KickStarter Spotlight is Freedom Planet, a game that will harken strongly back to the days when Sonic and MegaMan were dominating the console market."

Lots of fresh new content this week at 148Apps.com, including a three part series tracking the history and development of Firemint's Real Racing series. Rob Rich writes, "The soon to be released Real Racing 3 is on a lot of iOS gamers’ minds these days, especially many of us here at 148Apps. Because of this we thought it would be a good idea to recap the series. In fact, we might have gone a bit beyond that and created a trilogy. First we’ll be taking a look at the series’ history and the history of Firemint, the Melbourne based studio that created the series. After that we’ll be taking a look at the design factors and what when into creating the first two Real Racing titles as well as a little of the third. And in the third part of this series, we’ll take a look at the new Time Shifted Multiplayer found in Real Racing 3."

And we close out our weekly tour of sites by checking in on the latest KickStarter spotlight on AndroidRundown.com. Joseph Bertolini writes, "It is amazing how many times I leave my phone in the car or forget to bring my keys out with me. Consolidating these two would be a dream and there are a few solutions available but their effectiveness is very questionable. One of the more complete and involved KickStarter projects that we have spotlit here, Intellacase is a smartphone case that incorportes within it a key fab for any modern car with keyless entry. While this does nothing for most car owners who still reside in the land of metallic gateways, a growing number of affordable cars are adopting the keyless ignition as a viable offering. Certainly for anyone who has a car that utilizes keyless technology this is an incredibly attractive opportunity. Image going out on the town, with the increasing prevalence of NFC payments, and being able to bring just a phone which has access to both wallet and car access."

Another week down, but oh so much more to report in the coming days and weeks! Keep track of the latest happenings by following us on Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest. You'll be glad you did. See you next week kiddies!

This week at 148Apps.com, site founder Jeff Scott interviewed Kevin Dent, creator of P4RK: The Game Achievement Network. Dent says, "So right now gamers on mobile can engage in different rewards platforms, most of these firms reward gamers for having “moments” I am not making this up. Once you hit that “moment” you get a bag of Pop Chips etc. Now I am sure there are people that enjoy Popchips! P4RC is different in that we go in altogether different direction. We created a platform where gamers accumulate points regardless of whether they have their “moment” or not. With those points they can spend them on whatever they want, we are empowering the rewards business.

They are your points, it’s your choice and they are your rewards.

Also we do not cap the points so you can go big, medium or small; they are your points."

At GiggleApps.com, Amy Solomon reviewed another game from the celebrated PBS Kids series Martha Speaks: "Martha Speaks Story Maker opens with a series of questions for the players about the story they would like to create – be it characters, locations or items of interest to be used in their own fun and creative adventures. These choices are then used in a creative and fun story and there are enough variables to choose from that each story can easily be different from the last and can be stored in this app’s library to be enjoyed in the future."

And our AndroidRundown.comKickStarter spotlight of the week was for Trellie. Joseph Bertolini writes, "Enter the Trellie, a metallic key chain that attaches to the outside of any woman’s purse and has two lights that illuminate and blink when ever the connected phone is receiving or has missed a call. This really does two things because, especially at night, the blinking will be a great visual alarm as well as something that lets the user dig into their bag and check their phone less. This secondary use really does free up social situations and keeps the user engaged in the people around them instead of constantly rummaging through their purses."

Thus ends the week that was, but there's a great big beautiful tomorrow right around the corner. Join us for the latest app news, reviews and more, and keep track of everything by following us on Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest. See you next week!

This week at 148Apps.com, we took a closer look at what may be the future of Disney Interactive Entertainment: Disney Infinity. Site founder Jeff Scott writes, "Disney Infinity will be a multi-property, multi-platform exploration game which will let you can combine various Disney characters and worlds to use your imagination to the fullest. It will be a combination of real world toys and video games, similar to Skylanders, but taken to the extreme. For example, in Disney Infinity you can answer the question: who would win a race between Lightning McQueen from Cars and Dash from The Incredibles?

This is both good and bad news for iOS users. While the mobile part of Disney Infinity will be initially limited to so-called support apps, it will evolve over 2013 to a full Disney Infinity platform, though we are still trying to get details on that."

Over at GiggleApps.com, Amy Solomon reviewed My Beastly ABCs, saying, "I really appreciate not only the colorful look of this app, complete with wonderful illustrations and mild animated moments containing both a vintage sense of style as well as a modern look and feel, but also the pitch-perfect use of suspenseful, jazzy music and perfectly realized narration by celebrated voice-over artist Jim Dale as well."

And what week would be complete without a new KickStarter spotlight from AndroidRundown.com? Joseph Bertolini writes, "I just wrote an app review about an app that really helps me keep my life organized called Catch Notes. In that post I talk about the struggles I – like millions of other people – have with remembering events and to-do items. Apps in this space are generally very similar and are just slightly different iterations of the same thing; the idea stays consistent and there is very little motivation to pay attention to them. This is most apparent when trying to work on bad habits or trying to start new good ones. This is not going to be a cheesy New Year’s post, but the best way to change for the better is to work on the small things instead of trying to make large drastic changes. Since the biggest problem with existing apps is that there is a lack of motivation to continue checking them, and the medium that has most mastered this addictive motivation are video games, it was only a matter of time before there was a hybrid love-child of the two. This chimera is one of the more creative KickStarter projects we have done here, and it is called HabitRPG."

This week at 148Apps.com, we helped everyone looking to expand their iOS device's musical footprint with a round-up of Bluetooth speakers. Site editor Rob LeFebvre says, "Bluetooth is a fantastic technology. It lets me connect my iPhone or iPad to a ton of different devices, including speakers, keyboards, other computers, headphones, and mice without wires. The latest version, 4.0, draws very little power and features an increased signal range of up to 100 feet.

148Apps received three different portable Bluetooth speakers recently, and we decided to put them all through their paces, to better understand which ones might be better for specific uses. We’ll be looking at the Braven 600, the CubeEdge, the Disco 2, and the Logitech Boombox."

Over at GiggleApps.com, Amy Solomon was in a traveling mood, as she reviewed Geography Drive USA, calling it, "A wonderfully engaging educational app that teaches about American geography in ways children will love.
As one can imagine, it is not uncommon for friends and family to ask me to recommend apps for their children in grade school as many apps out there are for preschool-aged children. Geography Drive USA is a title that I can easily recommend as an application that is both highly educational and a lot of fun."

And at AndroidRundown.com, our KickStarter Spotlight of the week covered Pixel Kingdom. Joseph Bertolini writes, "Today we’re looking at a game that is the brainchild of a college sophomore from Central Florida and it is a fresh take on the game-type that was popularized by games such as Plants vs. Zombies; where waves of enemies come down set lanes, and it is up to the player to deploy defenses down each specific aisle. Named Pixel Kingdom it is a small twist on this idea is that here these defenses are actively moving down their lane in an endless battlefield against the ranks of evil. Thrown in are a handful of bosses that fill multiple lanes, such as random dragon attacks."

So there you have it - another week in the life of the 148Apps network of sites. Stick with us every day by following us on Twitter or Pinterest and Liking us on Facebook. There's more content just right around the corner.

When a week starts off with New Year's Eve, it's bound to be a good one, and this week was no exception at 148Apps.com. Site founder Jeff Scott started us off with a bang by saying, "We are proud to announce the nominees for the fifth annual Best App Ever Awards. The awards that celebrate the best apps available, not just the best selling. This year we saw an amazing response with over 715,000 nominations submitted for 6,755 unique apps!

Voting is now open and will remain open through January 31st, 2013. Winners will be announced in February and details on that are to come."

Over at GiggleApps.com, Amy Solomon took a closer look at Hansel & Gretel: Lost, saying, "Hansel & Gretel: Lost is a well crafted re-telling of this classic story for iPad, wonderfully illustrated with animations as well as including top-notch narration, music and sound effects. Auto-play is also an option as well as silencing the narration to read this book by oneself.

It is easy to tell from the first page that this app is something special. The illustrations are lush with color and beautiful to look at with a marbled textured style that I always find appealing. Every element in this book is at a superlative level of quality that adults will greatly appreciate, as will their children."

Finally, AndroidRundown.com writer Carter Dotson took on the establishment and challenged the conventional wisdom about "iPhone Killer" hardware: "Well, it took a bit longer than expected, but it seems like Google is finally going to use their Motorola acquisition to actually make a standout phone for themselves, the “X Phone.” Or whatever the next Nexus device will be called.

The immediate speculation swirling around is that this is finally Google’s “iPhone Killer.” You know, like the other Nexus devices that were iPhone killers. I don’t think that anything at this point will be an iPhone killer. It just isn’t going to happen."

And so begins 2013! Keep track of all the latest happenings, including developments in the Best App Ever Awards, by following us on Twitter, liking us on Facebook and following us on Pinterest. And from all of us across the 148Apps network of sites, have a Happy New Year!

'Twas the week before Christmas, and as everyone knows, Jeff Scott listed sale apps and watched that list grow: "As another year draws to a close, millions of people will find iOS devices and iTunes gift cards waiting for them under the tree. That means lots of people looking for apps and games to download and that means it’s time for a HUGE sale. This year does not disappoint with tons of apps and games on sale and a ton going free for Christmas week.

If you enjoy this list, feel free to tweet or share this post on Facebook.

Here are our picks from the best of the best apps and games on sale. And as a reminder, you can always find the latest apps and games on sale at our iOS Price Drops page."

Then away to GiggleApps we ran with a dash, and checked in with Amy Solomon, who had this news flash: "The Night Before Christmas presented by One Hundred Robots is a personal favorite retelling of the classic holiday story of the same name.

If one were to check iTunes, one could find multiple apps adapting this traditional Christmas story, and this app is a top choice of mine for a few reasons.

Although I am not always a fan of computer generated animation, especially when it boasts a 3D effect.
I do, however, love the bright, colorful and wonderfully stylized look of this computer-generated app, with interesting photographic elements and textures along with a 3D look for a very interesting visual experience. There is a wonderful use of perspective, and the placement of that would be the camera if one were shooting live action as well, as quick camera movements highlights the benefits of working with computer graphics."

Then at last we arrived at AndroidRundown, to see what was new in KickStarter-town: "Stands for smartphones are a very usual kickstarted project because they are all generally very simple and relatively cheap to make. We have done a few here for this blog post, and I was trying to stay away from them, but after seeing the crazy look of this week’s KickStarter Spotlight project I had to do it. This week I am showing off Simply Amplified’s Symphony Shells. They are 3-D printed phone stands that are shaped like real-life oceanic shells. They come in three separate forms, the urchin; small and spiked, the murex; arched and pointy, and the nautilus; square and twisting. All can be done in a very colorful and ornate tie-dye pattern or simply come in a solid or di-chromatic color scheme. My initial favorite is the nautilus simply because of its epic size and crazy spiky, square spiral. These really are very beautiful designs and any of them would display a smartphone with style and aplomb."